Social Security Administration needs more funding to serve more people, agency chief tells lawmakers

Martin O’Malley, chief of the Social Security Administration, told lawmakers Sept. 11 that his agency needs increased funding to improve its customer service operations.

“Social Security today is struggling to serve more customers than ever with staffing that Congress has reduced to a 50-year low,” O’Malley said before the Senate Budget Committee.

“This is what happens when an agency is forced to serve more and more and more people with fewer and fewer and fewer staff. And the American people deserve better,” the agency commissioner added.

As more of the population begins to reach retirement age, the number of new Social Security applicants and beneficiaries will continue to rise in the coming years, the agency’s chief actuary found, according to O’Malley’s written testimony.

This development is coupled with Social Security's other problem: the program's combined trust fund reserves are projected to face depletion in 2035, at which point continuing income to the funds would only be able to pay 83% of scheduled benefits, according to the Social Security Board of Trustees’ annual report.

Both Democrats and Republicans at the hearing agreed that Social Security benefits need to be protected, something that both presidential candidates have said as well.

Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., highlighted his own bill to address the program’s pending insolvency — known as the Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act — which would extend Social Security’s payroll tax to include all wages, self-employment income and investment income above $400,000. As of 2024, Social Security's maximum taxable earnings are $168,600, so individuals do not get taxed on earnings above that amount.

In March, President Joe Biden released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2025, which similarly calls for working to raise the income tax cap. The proposed budget also calls for increasing the Social Security Administration's funding by 9% from the 2023 level — something O'Malley supports.

“The president's budget for Social Security would be a big step in the right direction,” O’Malley said at the hearing. “It would allow us to improve customer service (and) reduce those unacceptably long wait times of backlogs across a range of services.”

In recent months, O’Malley said the Social Security Administration has made progress in addressing some of its customer service issues, including reducing wait times for its 800 number by 50% and clearing more cases in initial disability determinations every week for 12 weeks in a row.

“But make no mistake about it, these recent gains will be short-lived without your immediate attention and support,” O’Malley told lawmakers.

Whitehouse asked O’Malley for some examples of things that the agency could improve with increased funding.

“The two things that (increased funding) would primarily allow us to do is to start to staff up those critically important customer-facing places, namely the 800 number” and the field offices, O’Malley replied.

Some Republicans on the committee questioned O’Malley about the agency’s remote work policy, which he said requires three days of work in-person and two days of optional teleworking.

When workers are remote, “things get processed, interviews happen on the phone (and) interviews happen by video,” O’Malley told Rep. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who serves as the top Republican on the committee. “As I traveled around, I indeed … found some people that choose to come in all five days out of the week.”

The head of the Social Security Administration also told Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., that the agency’s productivity has actually increased over the last year despite its remote work policy, as several things get done when workers are not in front of customers.

“The same people in those field offices are also the ones that process the insurance claims, that need time away from the windows and away from the conversations to actually make real and effectuate the things for which people are applying,” O’Malley said.